Trial begins for man accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend in Pikesville High School parking lot in 2023

The trial of a man charged with shooting his ex-girlfriend near Pikesville High School last July began Tuesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court.

Two months before police found 45-year-old Lakisha Wheeler dead in her car in the high school parking lot on July 7, 2023, prosecutors said she moved out of the home she had shared with Levi Feldman, the father of her youngest child. Wheeler was a mother of five who worked as a home health aide.

Feldman, arrested days later, is charged with first-degree murder and firearms offenses in Wheeler’s death.

According to charging documents, Feldman violated a final protective order Wheeler had against him on June 24, nearly two weeks before she was killed. In that incident, police wrote that Feldman tried to come inside her home and threatened to kill her and her new boyfriend. The arrest warrant for violating that order wasn’t executed until after Wheeler’s death.

Baltimore County Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Fuller told jurors in his opening statement Tuesday that Feldman shot Wheeler as she sat in the driver’s seat early July 6 and left her body to decompose in the “sweltering heat.”

“He pulls out a handgun and shoots her at point-blank range five times,” Fuller said.

Wheeler’s family reported her missing July 6, but she wasn’t found until the evening of July 7, 2023, when a man who had parked close to the school to attend religious services nearby spotted her body inside her car. When police responded, they also found shell casings inside her car. Her phone was missing.

Feldman’s defense attorney Erin Cullinan said fingerprints taken from the passenger side window of Wheeler’s car exclude Feldman. She also said police never submitted DNA found on the passenger side of the car for analysis.

Surveillance footage captured a man prosecutors say is Feldman getting out of Wheeler’s car at the high school and walking east along Smith Avenue and then south on Greenspring Avenue. Wheeler parked her car at the high school around 7:45 a.m. July 6, 2023, and a Black man is seen on video getting out of the car after about 25 minutes, charging documents said.

Cullinan said the man in the surveillance footage shares some physical similarities with Feldman, but also has some “notable physical differences.” No weapon was recovered, she said.

Prosecutors played footage captured from a pole camera in court Tuesday, showing a man in a bright green shirt walking on the sidewalk beneath a tree, swinging his right arm. Wheeler’s brother Tavon Wheeler testified Tuesday that when detectives showed him surveillance footage, he immediately identified the man as Feldman.

“It’s Levi,” Wheeler said he immediately told investigators.

The two men have known each other since before Lakisha Wheeler and Feldman’s son, now about seven years old, was born, Tavon Wheeler said.

Phone records show Wheeler and Feldman exchanged calls early in the morning of July 6, 2023. Wheeler also called a family member to speak to her son and called her employer, prosecutors said. The final call between Wheeler and Feldman took place when both were close to Sinai Hospital, Fuller said.

Prosecutors said Wheeler picked up Feldman near the hospital and drove them both to Pikesville High School before Feldman shot Wheeler and walked about 3 miles back to his own car.

Feldman called Wheeler that morning because his car had broken down, Cullinan said, and there were tools in Wheeler’s vehicle that he needed to fix it.

Investigators wrote in charging documents that the last recorded location of Wheeler’s phone was at Greenspring Avenue and Farringdon Road at about 8:33 a.m. July 6, 2023. Police believed Feldman took her phone and either turned it off or threw it away nearby.

The trial, scheduled to last the rest of this week, began after jury selection Monday. One juror was excused Tuesday morning after he told Baltimore County Circuit Judge Keith R. Truffer that he suffers from severe claustrophobia that would make it impossible for him to stay in the courtroom and jury deliberation room. An alternate juror replaced him.

Other Baltimore-area residents have died in recent years after women sought protection from domestic violence through the justice system.

Leon Douglas Hill pleaded guilty to killing his coworker Elaine Jackson, an MTA bus driver who had obtained a peace order against Hill days before her death in 2022. Hill was sentenced to 40 years in prison in May.

In November, a 48-year-old Parkville woman, Maxine Redfern, was shot by her husband. He subsequently shot at Baltimore County Police, who returned fire, killing him and hitting her again. She had received a protective order from a judge as she sought to leave her husband.

Earlier this year, a man was charged with murder in the death of an 81-year-old, a friend of the man’s wife. His wife had reported to Baltimore Police that her husband held her hostage and robbed her. Baltimore Police served the arrest warrant for kidnapping and armed robbery 12 days after her report.